A major difficulty in environmental control for indoor agricultural growing facilities is the concentration of heat caused by the high intensity lighting. To resolve this problem systems and techniques exist such as venting the lights, vertically raising the height of the lights, or continuously moving the lights horizontally. However, the glass enclosure required for current venting systems filters certain spectrums of ultraviolet radiation (e.g., UV-B) that are beneficial for many species of plants to thrive. Additionally, raising the height of the lights reduces the intensity of the light resulting in lower plant yields. Finally, current horizontal light moving systems are not vented or wired.
The high-intensity lights used in indoor agricultural growing facilities produce large amounts of heat and consume large amounts of energy. Specifically, an unvented 1,000 W light typically used in commercial growing facilities produces 1,000 W of heat (i.e., 3,412 BTUs). A large indoor growing facility may contain one thousand 1,000 W lights which if left unvented would require 350 tons of cooling capacity.
In addition to maintaining an ideal consistent environmental temperature, it is also ideal to maintain an optimal leaf surface temperature on the plant. Maintaining an optimal leaf surface temperature increases the transpiration rate for the plant thereby increasing the carbon dioxide uptake rate thus increasing overall yield by up to 30%. For example, the optimal leaf surface temperature on a cannabis plant is not to exceed 85° F. To maintain this optimal leaf surface temperature growers currently either vertically raise the lights or reduce ambient environmental temperature. Vertically raising the lights lessens the intensity of the light source and thereby results in lower yields. Reducing ambient environmental temperature requires substantial energy consumption and thereby increases overall growing costs.